it does require is very obvious Lord is a word of power and autority it requires service and obedience Nothing more frequent in the Prophets than when they have from God severely worded their commands to add this sanction I am the Lord and as applied to Christ St Paul does say I serve the Lord Christ. A servant is the necessary relative to a Lord and truly doing what he doth command was the use he assigned of all that power he had given him teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded And truly if those Scriptures be remembred which secure his Autority thus let us know that Power was the reward of his sufferings and he endured them partly for the Title 's sake therefore says as much and Heb. 12. 2. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God did all this that he might gain that place or if that be not plain enough then this is most express Rom. 14. 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living Verse 8. That whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord that is that both our life might be consecrated to him our lives spent on his service and our deaths be at his command and this was part of the end of his death And then I appeal to your own hearts for what end think you he did so desire and obtain this power Do you think when he was set at the right hand of God he was exalted onely to a name that by all those sufferings he did acquire but a bare title to be call'd Lord of Lords as he is call'd Rev. 19. 16. but neither to look after our obedience nor indeed to set us any law to obey as some would have it Was this power so dear to him as that he would suffer all those torments to compass it and yet when he hath it that it should be so little regarded by him as to suffer us to neglect contemn it to go on in a continued course of disobedience to all his precepts to rebel against his Power never submit our appetites to it but let every lording passion fly in his face every lust defy his Autority let us be proud against that Lord be higher than our duties and all the temper of virtues and let every ebullition of our proud wrath trample on a statute back'd with hell-fire yea and so believe that his death should procure us an impunity in doing this What a wretched mistake is this to think his bloud which purchased him a power to command us should purchase us a leave to disobey him This is to make Christ's bloud divided against it self and to make it spill and dash it self That we should go on in a course of iniquity or allow our selves some peevish vices and stop our own consciences and a Preacher's mouth with saying Christ died for us when as 't is clear he died that he might be Lord that is that we might live and dy to him do both at his command and canst thou think that that death will excuse thee for not obeying which was undertaken for that very end that thou mightest obey him Christ died to be thy Lord and thou wilt have that death a plea for thee when thou obeyest sin and the Devil his greatest Enimies His Cross was his very Ensign and Standard against these Enimies his Passion was his grappling with them and his death his Victory And yet thou dost again submit to their authority becomest a subject to their power and settest them Lord over thee and fetchest the justification of this thy defection from that death and victory and that is the same thing as to make them of no autority nor power yea the captivity and ruin of those Enimies to be the reason of thy obeying them to excuse thy disservice to Christ by saying he is thy Lord and for thy rebellion and waging war with him pretend thou dost it under his own standard No certainly his Title claims Obedience and does assure thee thou must serve This is the first thing what thou must do The second what thou maist expect from it is easily discover'd that is wages For he will recompence every man according to his deeds Rom. 2. 6. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life v. 7. And glory honor and peace to every man that doth good v. 10. For he is the Lord of glory the Prince of peace and Lord of life the Scripture saith in a word to sum up both what his Title doth require and what we may expect from it it saith Service and it saith Wages and both are set down in that to the Heb. 5. 9. He is the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him and both here are applied to him who does in earnest owne the relation to this Title and can say in truth My Lord the next part and first of the applying what it does require Service as it is the assuring of performance My Lord. And truly had we not entred any voluntary obligation and had we not contracted formally to take him for our Lord and not onely owned all that the relation does import to be due from us but engaged also to render it yet he is to us both 1. By an Original right he made us and there is not a workman in the world hath so much right to require the uses of his own handy-work to dispose of that same utensil which himself shap'd or fram'd as the Lord hath to require our service Did I perchance furnish the Lord with some materials for my self or did I find any piece towards my making contribute any least thing to my being then let me claim somthing for my share in my self and by the rule of fellowship with God have some use of my self to my self and as to that let him not be my Lord. But there is no such thing he called me into being out of the infinite resistance of vacuity and nothing He gave me body soul and every power and faculty and he upholds every motion and inclination of those faculties and gives me opportunities and objects for them There is no considerability of any thing within me is from my self but entirely owes its being from his store and comes from the Almighty and then what least imaginable pretence or plea can I have why every motion and inclination both of soul and body should not be bound to look towards his service and every action and thought acknowledge him My Lord. And 2. By purchased Title He did redeem us from the service of those cruel Lords Sin and the Devil whose service is unreasonable and unmanly slavery and whose wages is eternal ruin and he bought the right and title to our service
other Resolutions thou seest the things that men with so much care and sin provide to make their lives delightful here although success answer their care are vain and helpless things and life it self as vain and I must die and drop from Heaven and therefore be thou sure to take a care their treacherous comforts do not make me die into the everlasting want of them and of all comforts The Artificial pleasures of the Palate whether in meats or drinks forc'd tasts that do at once satisfie and provoke the Appetite will rellish ill when I begin to swallow down my spittle but sure I am I am invited to the Supper of the Lamb to drink new Wine with Christ in my Father's Kingdom The fatted Calf is dressing for my Entertainment and shall I choose to be a while a Glutton with the Swine rather than the eternal Guest of my Father's Table and Bosom and refuse these for a few sick Excesses which would end in qualms and gall and vomits if there were no guilt to rejolt too and which will kindle a perpetual Feaver The Honours and the Glories of this Life will lose their shine when I am going to make my Bed in the Dark in a black lonely desolate hole of Earth my Gayeties must die when I must say to Corruption thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister And if there were pride or ambition in them their Worm will never die that Pride will make me fall as low as Lucifer that Glory will go out into utter darkness and that Ambition change my Honour into everlasting Shame Envy and Torment But sure I am that there are Glorious Robes and Thrones and Scepters in God's Promises and let thy gayety my Soul be in the Robe of Immortality the Throne of thy Ambition that of Glory When I shall lie tortur'd or languishing in my last Bed Palaces and Possessions will no more relieve me than the Landskip of them in the Hangings can do it And if there were Covetousness Bribery Sacriledg or Injustice in them I shall be carried out of these and have no other Habitation assigned me but with the Devil and his Angels shall inherit and possess nothing but the Almighty's Indignation for ever But in my Father's House are many Mansions Places prepared for me and an Inheritance as wide as Heaven as Endless and Incorruptible as Eternity and God Himself And sure if I may choose there I will live where there is neither Will nor possibility to die where there is Life fulness of Joy Pleasures for Evermore To which c. The Sixth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL PSALM LXXIII v. 25. Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee MY Text is the result of the Pious man's Audit the foot of the account in summing up his whole that he hath either in Possession or Desire and instead of nice Division of the Words I shall observe in them these Subjects of Discourse First the different tenure or condition of Estates in the two different Countreys we relate to this here is a Land onely of desires the other is a place of enjoyments Have in Heaven Desire on Earth Yea Secondly Though our estate here in this Earth be present and that other seem removed far off yet the possessions of that are present and in hand but the most native satisfactions of the Earth are still at distance onely the object of our aims and expectations I have now I have in Heaven on the Earth I but desire Thirdly Here is the matter of both these desires and enjoyments to the Pious man No Person or no thing for so it bears also but God There is nothing upon Earth that I desire besides thee And as to Heaven the negation is express'd emphatically by a Question Whom have I in Heaven but thee Yet least this Question should look like an Expostulation and he that asks it seem unsatisfied with his Portion we will therefore Lastly see the Importance of it to the Christian since our Saviour is gone up into Heaven see whom the Christian hath there And if the Psalmist could find none but God and David if he were the Author could not see the Son of David there yet since Christ is set at the Right hand of God the Christians present Interest in Heaven is such that looking with contempt on all that worldly men applaud themselves in the enjoyment of rejecting all but thee O Christ he justly triumphs in resolving of this question to himself and being satisfied in having thee he does renounce even the desiring any thing but thee Of these in their order beginning here on Earth where our tenure even of earthly things is but desire this World does give no satisfactions in hand but still they are onely the objects of our Expectations and wishes When God hath given Man an erect Countenance Eyes that do naturally look towards him and the very frame of him is such that Heaven is his constant Object it were no wonder if his looks and thoughts were always there since both the duty and necessity of that does seem imprest upon him in his making and to desire things above is as it were the Law in his members But when he swims in delicacies here upon the Earth is immerst in the plenties of all kinds that these should give him nothing but desires of themselves that the delights should not be present to him but he should still pursue and need that which he is encompast with that while with open mouth and in a most intemperate current he swills down the pleasures yet his open mouth should gape only with thirst and he be sensible of nothing but the want of these is strange even to astonishment Yet such it seems the nature of them is When S. John would enumerate all that is in the World the particular that he gives in is thus 1 John ii 16. All that is in the world the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life He does not say the objects of these Lusts that are to serve and satisfie them for there 's no such thing as satisfaction but onely lust and if we make enquiry into the particulars we shall find it To begin with that of the Eyes Covetousness or the love of Money 'T is evident that where an Object is not useful to the faculty it cannot satisfie for satisfaction is fulfilling of our needs and uses but Money is not useful to the sight nor indeed does it prove useful to or serve any of the Covetous mans occasions or faculties rather the contrary in every kind he does bereave himself of good because he hath it He is in agonies of trouble and sollicitude lest he should need and not have that which when he hath acquir'd he will still need and will not have enjoyment of Nor is it possible it should be otherwise for since there is no natural
their lusts advance but their lusts are their plague and torment them and they extremely hate and curse those things which they do passionately desire Now that habitual Sinner his sins they are his emploiment his delight too he longs as those other but he satisfies also and finds pleasure in them and then if those others be fit company for the Devils onely canst thou believe thy self fit company for Christ that he should bid thee come to him No begin to act thy Hell a little sooner account them here thy torments hate them in time perceive them to be burdens while they may be laid down and then come unto Christ and he will give thee rest And evermore O Lord give us of thy rest a rest from sin here and a rest from misery eternally Yea O Lord give us to labor and to find trouble under that intolerable burden of our guilt that we may with eager hast fly to the refreshment that we perverse obdurate Sinners whom thy mercies cannot invite our own miseries may force to be happy and tho our wickednesses are multiplied into an infinite mass and weight yet despise us not when we fall under them for thou didst invite us to come and bring all that load to thee despise us not tho heavy laden for thou thy self didst bear this weight and didst die under it And O thou who didst thy self thus suffer by reason of this load pity us that labor with it ease us of the burden of our former guilt free us from the slavery of our iniquity from bearing any longer Sathan's loads then shall we at last sit down with thee in the Land of everlasting rest deliver'd from all weights but that eternal weight of glory and resting from all labors save that of praising thee and ascribing all Honor Power Praise Might Majesty and Dominion to Father Son and holy Ghost for evermore SERMON X. OF THE CHRISTIANS VICTORY Over Death Sin and the Law 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory thro our Lord Jesus Christ. THE words are the close of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Song of joy and triumph for a victory Now a victory supposeth Enimies and the verse before names them and the Text shews us the means that they art conquer'd by and who they are that are partakers of the Victory I shall declare and treat of both 1. The Enimies here mention'd and we may account them three if that which gives both aid and strength to fortifies our Enimy be so as sure it is 1. Here is Death which sin arms with a sting and do's envenome it 2. Sin it self empower'd and strengthned by the Law 3. That Law also In the second place here are the means by which the Victory is gotten and for whom us the victory thro Jesus In handling all which I shall shew First that the Law gives Sin all its strength and how it do's so 2ly That Sin is the sting of Death and how it is so 3ly That by Christ both the Law which is the strength of Sin is taken away and Sin which is the sting of Death pull'd out and so both Sin and Death so weaken'd that they cannot hurt now and they shall be swallowed up in perfect victory and who they are all this is don for Of these all in this order which I crave leave to speak to directly without any least diverting from the Text or Subject First I am to speak of the first preparations that are made against us in behalf of our Enimies and that is to shew you that the Law gives all the strength to Sin which it hath and how it do's so Sin hath its very being from Law it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law 1 John 3. 4. and Sin is not imputed where there is no Law Rom. 5. 13. yea where there is no Law there is no transgression c. 4. 15. But this is not all for in the Law besides the Precepts there is also Sanction and it lays a twofold obligation first to duty secondly upon transgression to punishment 1. To duty and that perfect and unsinning strict obedience for the terms are these Cursed is he that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them And to this the whole man is oblig'd the soul as well as body caro spiritus Dei res est saith Tertull. God made the soul as well as body one 's his creature as much as the other and the one hath as much reason then to pay him honor and obedience as the other if indeed the spirit hath not much more to obey him in its own motions and actings than in those of the body which are onely under it and guided by it So that thoughts are criminal against this Law as well as doings by them the Soul fulfils its part of the transgression more it may be than its own share while it robs the Flesh seizes its satisfactions and makes them her own against her nature And indeed whatever part the Law is broken and transgrest by 't is transgression and sin still whether by the mind for lust when it hath conceived onely sin is then begotten James 1. 15. or by the tongue for of every idle word we must give an account at the day of Judgment Matth. 12. 36. and by thy words thou shalt be condemn'd Or lastly by the works So that according to the Tenor of this strict and severe Law whatever we can do or indeed whatever we do not is Sin besides commissions that are sinful there is still defect and so transgression in our thoughts our words and deeds even in the best and in not doing also there 's omission and so failing But besides this severe obligation of the Law to duty upon this our faileur there is a severer obligation 2. To punishment for every sin is cursed as we saw Upon this account the Law saith St Paul worketh wrath Rom. 4. 15. we are children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. whose inheritance is destruction and who are of right to possess onely the sad issues of God's indignation for to this the Law condemns us all by reason of our Sins and upon that account the Law is said to be the strength of Sin Because by force and vertue of this threatning of the Law we that have sinned are therefore liable and obnoxious to the condemnation of it And this I take to be the meaning of that place Rom. 7. 7 8 9 10. I had not known sin but by the law for I had not known concupiscence except the law had said thou shalt not covet But sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the law sin was dead but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was ordain'd to life I found to be unto death The Apostle's drift here is not to evince how the
bliss which to conceive is to be as God and to enjoy is to be one with him And O thou Blessed Jesu the eternal Lord of all those comforts be favourable unto us thy servants that turn to thee with weeping and with mourning that do with hearty bewailing for our hardness desire thee to teach our souls with some compunction for those iniquities that did put thee to death and would ruin us to break our rocky hearts that they may stream out tears for those our sins which shed thy bloud and would cast us into eternal wailings and as thou hast humbled us into the dust and prostrated our very souls unto the ground to grant unto us to sit down in that dust and to bewail our own demerits which our very ruin can neither equal nor amend O suffer us not to be so obdurate as to prove unmoveable by all thy pressures insensible of our own miseries and sufferings and such as amidst the pains of sin do still retain the malice and the obstinacy and then at last by these thy methods and our greifs recover us from the follies of our lives close our eyes and withdraw our affections from the temting lightnesses and vanities of our conversations and fix our thoughts and appetites upon thy serious comforts those heavenly refreshments after so much sadness that we being reckon'd amongst them whom thou dost chasten put into the number of thy mourners whose share of sorrows are dispenc't in this life may have title to the inheritance of Sons the joys of blessedness and the portion of eternal consolations in the land of everlasting pleasures with thee the Lamb that wert slain and art therefore worthy to receive all honor power praise might majesty and dominion with the Father and the Holy Ghost now and for evermore SERMON VII OF THE CLEANSING POWER Of Christian HOPE 1 John 3. 3. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as he is pure HOPE is of all others the most active passion setting all the rest of them and the whole man on work for who would ever do or desire any thing if he did not hope for some good by it It is this hope alone that employs all the men and all the professions of the world it is the wings of the Desires and Actions carrying them thro the greatest difficulties with courage and alacrity with Confidence and an unwearied Constancy Ad bonas spes pertinax animus est Never will a man leave so long as he does hope and of all hopes that of the Christian should be the most active because it aims at the highest good in comparison of which all other good things are but shadows For what are the pleasures of earth to the things of God not worthy to be the expressions no nor the foils of them Now we see the greater the hopes the more active men are in the pursuit of them for who is there that will take so much pains for a Cottage as for a Crown And is it not then a wonder that of all Hopes yet this Hope of Heaven should be the least effectual in the minds of men and of all pleasures those of God should least invite and least imploy us For what one is there that does not with more eager and constant industry pursue the hopes of profit or the hopes of pleasure than he does the hopes of Immortality and of Blessedness How few are there that do not spend more time and more endeavors take more and longer pains in their Sports than in their Religion which could not certainly be if they had not surer and greater hopes of joy from their sports than from Heaven for the greater hope would certainly set them the more on work No Heaven is a thing of no tast carries no profit no pleasure in the meaning of it for if it did it would employ them in the gaining of it and every one that had this hope would purify himself as he is pure Matth. 5. 8. If the inheritance of the Kingdom of God were as some were upon earth entail'd so that do they what they will they could not be put by it there were then some reason not to wonder wherefore we see men live in the broad way to Hell and yet then hope to come to Heaven and certainly nothing but such a perswasion as that can possibly lull men into such a wretchless security as they are possest with in a thing of this eternal consequence For if we should examin them the most sinful wretch of them all hath hopes to be sav'd yea he would not be able to stand under the burden and the horror of his own killing thoughts if he should but once despair of that so that hope he will and yet if he believe one jot of Scripture it is impossible for him to hope it For that bids him not be deceiv'd neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor theeves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God So that he dares not not hope and yet if he do but ask himself he knows he cannot hope and what then makes him do it Certainly the opinion that such and such the inheritance is entail'd upon and be they what they will they shall have Heaven But alas they are mistaken in the nature of the inheritance we may read of many that were cast off and the Heir must be a servant as long as he is a child if he do not obey no hopes of his arriving at his inheritance when he is come to age St John here will dash all those vain hopes and will tell them as they cannot justly hope for none such as they can be possest of that inheritance and therefore 't is to no purpose for them to hope it So also that they do not indeed hope for if they did ever expect to arrive at Heaven they would not run on in a course that leads a clean contrary way The Apostle here propounds five Arguments to exhort them to the study of Piety to press after Holiness and to leave off their courses of sin I shall name them backwards First in the tenth verse if we be Christians we not onely will not but cannot sin Yea secondly we are indeed Children of the Devil if we do v. 8. Neither thirdly have we any Communion with Christ possibly or interest in his Righteousness v. 6 7. Nay fourthly they destroy the very end of Christ's coming into the world v. 5. Lastly in the front of all these neither can they hope to enjoy any of those glorious promises that God hath made to his Children those of giving them glory and immortality For he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as he is pure In the handling of these words I shall shew you what it is to purify himself Secondly what kind of purity he is to strive after as he is pure Thirdly what the